Scorecard of The Sixth House of Assembly
By Franklyn ISONG
The parliament plays a pivotal role as the fulcrum of our democracy. Primarily, it exists as the symbol of democracy because in any military administration, unlike the executive and judicial arms of government, the parliament is usually proscribed. Its functions are key to the success and sustenance of democracy.
The sixth Akwa Ibom State House of Assembly will be winding up its four years term, tomorrow, Thursday, June 6, 2019, and constitutionally, the state governor, Mr Udom Emmanuel, is required to make a proclamation on the inauguration of the seventh Assembly.
Moving forward, it is important for the outgoing Assembly to be assessed by citizens of the state so that the lawmakers can know their scorecard and see how the assembly has fared under them.
As a journalist, watchdog and conscience of the society, it is one of my avowed responsibilities to keep close tabs on the activities of the Assembly. This self-imposed function I have judiciously carried out without fear or favour.
For instance, as part of oversight on the lawmakers, last year, I conducted an online opinion poll, tagged; “Performing Lawmakers (PL) and Sleeping Lawmakers (SL)” and another on their popularity rating by their constituents. The results of these two polls are available online.
Reviewing activities of the Assembly in the past four years, this is my assessment and scorecard of the sixth Akwa Ibom State House of Assembly using the following indicators:
1. Law making function – 20%:
The State House of Assembly is constitutionally empowered to make laws to ensure peace, order and good governance of the state on matters in the Concurrent Legislative List. This function, was carried out to a large extent, but, the state governor withheld assent to some of the important and people’s oriented Bills such as: the Physically Challenged Bill; the Administration of Criminal Justice Act ( ACJA), etc and disappointedly, the sixth Assembly did not have the courage to override the governor’s veto, in exercise of its constitutional powers.
2. Representative function – 10%:
To ensure effective representation of the people, and to ensure that no section of the state is marginalised, the Assembly is constituted with 26 members from the 26 state constituencies. The lawmakers did not hold regular constituency briefing/interaction with their constituents to keep their constituents abreast with their (lawmakers’) legislative activities during the four years under review. The lawmakers only returned to their constituents at the eve of the 2019 general elections to organise empowerment programmes.
3. Deliberation function 5%:
Procedurally, assembly members are supposed to be effectively involved in the day to day debates on the plenary. This was not the case in the sixth Assembly as the online opinion poll I conducted last year, indicated that majority of the lawmakers slept away during this function. The debates were usually done by few members.
4. Administrative function (Confirmation of appointments) – 7%:
Section 192 (2) of the 1999 Constitution of FRN (as amended) empowers the assembly to confirm government appointees such as commissioners, chief judge, board members, etc. In doing this, thorough scrutiny were not carried out in most cases.
5. Oversights investigation function – 3%:
Section 88 of the 1999 CFRN (as amended) requires the assembly to carry out investigations within its competence in order to prevent and expose corruption, inefficiency or waste in the execution of projects and implementation of the state budgets, as well as in the administration of laws in the state by the executive arm of government. The assembly did not perform this function with the required seriousness.
6. Quasi–Judicial function – 0 %:
Section 143 and 188 of the 1999 CFRN (as amended) empowers the assembly to impeach and remove from office any member of the executive, the governor and deputy governor inclusive, if found guilty of gross misconduct. But because the sixth Assembly was not reasonably independent, being largely perceived as an appendage of the executive arm of government, this vital legislative power was never considered by the assembly. In the past four years, there were a lots of issues that amounted to gross misconduct, especially the starving/mismanagement of local government funds and etc, by the state government officials, but the assembly looked the other way.
7. Judicial function – 6%:
The assembly is required to regulate its proceedings through laid down procedures, including issuing of warrant to compel the attendance of any person who, after having been summoned to appear before it, fails to do so. This function was carried out only on one occasion by its subcommittee that investigated the handling of the Anchor Poultry Borrower’s Scheme.
In summary, going by my assessment, the outgoing sixth Assembly can be rated a little above average, that is, 51% using the indicators stated above.
• Franklyn Isong is a public affairs commentator and conscience of the society.
